What did Spectator writers really get up to at school?

Rod Liddle

If you leave a Bunsen burner on for about ten minutes, then quickly put the rubber pipe over a water tap and turn it on full, you get a small explosion and a scalding stream of water to be directed at a boy called Harris. Similarly, if you attach crocodile clips to Harris’s jacket and then wire it up to a power source, it makes him jump about a lot. I loved physics lessons.

Jeremy Clarke

Snow in the playground. The tall caped figure of the headmaster appeared on a short outside staircase — a rare balcony appearance of a benign, reclusive demigod. One long-distance snowball among the flying hundreds, arcing higher than the rest, travelling through the air in slow time, apparently laser guided, is fixed in the memory of all who saw it.

Rory Sutherland

I discovered that, in the school library, by removing one of the two front-supporting brackets beneath any bookshelf, the shelf would remain in precarious equilibrium until lightly touched, at which point the shelf and its entire contents would fall on to the head of the intending reader.